


Easy Touches

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Touch-Starved, relationship progression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 08:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7260937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam and Ronan had always been stand-offish as individuals, closed off about contact, now they have to navigate a relationship where they try to establish the little touches they crave</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy Touches

Blue and Gansey made it look easy: the way he tucked her loose hair behind her ear, the way she tapped on his knee absently when she wanted attention, the way their hands met on a sidewalk and held.

Of course, nothing was easy in the life of Adam Parish. Not like that, not like soft brushes and little hearts in their eyes as their bodies bumped into each other.

With Ronan it was always a question: how do I touch and mean it. Sex was the easy part, it was the in-between that mattered.

Ronan stood in his boxers and a sweater in their kitchen-bathroom-laundry room and flipped something with the irritation of someone accustomed to irritation.

The egg didn’t stand a chance.

Adam watched him slowly, with the eyes of a paintbrush layering colors, taking it’s time on the details. Ronan’s shirt road up a little too high, leaving a sliver of skin between the cusp of sweater fabric and the elastic of his boxers.

A strip of perfectly naked skin that lay like a new born calf born in the middle of the night, unprotected and unnoticed.

He held his breath for a moment and watched Ronan’s hips tilt a little, jerks of his pelvis that made figure eights in the least rhythmic way possible. Adam’s padded up slowly behind him and his fingers hovered close to his waist.

He doesn’t say anything, talking wasn’t the point here, he slid the pads of his fingers experimentally over Ronan’s exposed middle. The other boy pauses his furious cooking venture.

Ronan opens his mouth, but Adam tentatively holds on a little tighter, the ghosts of his fingers tips rounding his middle.

He touches him, soft and gentle, not words usually applied to either of the boys, but he would try it out like a wine tasting they both held in their mouths, waiting for the other one to spit it out.

They sway, Ronan’s mouth twitches up and he flips the egg again.

He rests his head on his shoulder and closes his eyes, breathing in the musk of his scent and the air of hesitance to his movements: a question in his joints as Adam leaned on him.

Finally, they sway in silence and Adam murmurs something into his neck and Ronan turns around and whispers something into his deaf ear.

“What was that?” Asshole.

“I said stop clinging you little shit, what is this babysitter hour?”

Adam shakes his head, “what? Afraid of actual couple interactions?” Mock hostility permeates his voice, but a hint of too much honesty rounds the edges.

“Fuck man, I’m making you breakfast, how much more couple shit do you want?”

Adam shakes his head and gives him one last squeeze as he watches him stab the egg with a spatula again.

He kisses him on the cheek, just to try it out, to see if these little things could fit jagged boys with little walls around their bruises, Ronan shivers and he huffs something unintelligible.

“Come again?”

“Your bid for morning sex is fucking noted you prick.”

Adam huffs and gets plates out, “not what I was going for.” Their eyes meet and Adam keeps trying.

Ronan trails his fingers down Adam’s arm when he puts the half decimated breakfast in front of him.

“It looks like a warzone.” He comments dryly and Ronan twapps him on the head, still an easy touch at least.

\--------------------

Ronan was still trying to scope out Adams boundaries: where was too much, not enough, how could he kiss the scar above his last rib or suck the calluses off his palms (not that he would want to get rid of those).

It was like a school room question no one was raising their hand to answer and Ronan was not a fucking fan of classes to begin with. But he’d sit down and take notes for Adam.

It was movie night, an admittedly stupid idea for couples with nothing better to do, but he’d watch The Conjuring if it would make Blue shut up, he never got her exact thing for horror movies but it’d do.

Blue was of course in Gansey’s lap and Ronan was trying to gauge Adam like a clock that ticked backwards. Still figuring it out.

Adam glanced at him now and then but mostly kept his eyes languidly on the foolish family about to get their asses haunted to them by the other side. 

He makes a couple false attempts, hands twitching by his sides and eyes downcast, it was the ache he wasn’t filling and the screeching in his head of trying to make it easy. Make it sweet where it was either rough.

He inches a little closer, his eyes catch on Blue and Gansey to make sure they aren’t paying attention, and Ronan tilts his head, like a boulder on a cliffs edge and slowly curves it onto Parrish’s shoulder.

No one would know.

Of course, that was a lie, as Noah smiled at him like a tattered curtain in the corner and Ronan sneers back, Noah shrugs and disappears. He did not appreciate the haunting genre of films.

Ronan can feel Adam tense against him, Ronan was hunched shoulders and cave walls, not the ‘cuddle with your boyfriend while you watch a blockbuster.’

He closes his eyes and melts into Adam’s shoulder anyway, letting himself be carried away by background screams and Adam’s pulse, hot and fast turning into a slow stream.

They breathed in time and Adam’s hand snaked its way into his.

They were still unsure and not entirely in sync but Ronan’s cage-door heart creaked under the touch like hardened honey melting under heat.

He leans into him, and Blue's eyes eventually found Ronan's and the hint of humor in her look hits him all once. He uses his free hand to flip her off. 

\-----------------

Adam’s heart almost fully stopped when Ronan leaned in one Sunday morning before church, just them in bed and the light like yellow morning glories on the horizon. It was early, Adam was naked, sleepy, and tracing the outline of Ronan’s back muscles.

His heart almost stopped when Ronan came inches to his face and planted what could only be a butterfly kiss on his eyelashes.

It may have been the stillness of the moment, the air like Christmas lights lighting up between them, because he just snuck in and pressed their faces so close together that their eyelashes kissed.

It was so open and naïvely child-like that a laugh bubbled up within Adam before he can help it. It sounded full and robust even to his ears, and Ronan was already ducking his head down and away.

Adam stops him and rubs his fingers over his shaved head affectionately and pulls him up into a deep kiss. A deep and lazy kiss that rocks into his center and spreads warmth back into his fingertips, Adam doesn't let Ronan open his mouth to take it back now. Hide his embarrassment under strings of bravado.

Chainsaw caws from the corner and Ronan finally pulled back, blinking and stretching into the light from outside, shedding shreds of sun onto his straining limbs, making Adam want to kiss and devour him all over again.

“I’ll walk you to church,” Adam announces as Ronan finishes stretching and goes over to feed Chainsaw.

Ronan snorts and forms a crooked smile, “if you want to.” It certainly wasn’t a verbal embrace but Adam was getting what Ronan meant a lot more.

He slips on one of Ronan’s shirts just for the hell of it and goes to locate his discarded boxers and pants.

Ronan puts on his better set of clothes and slouches towards the door, not checking to see if Adam was following. He trails after him.

“How’s Mathew?” Adam whispers as he remembers the boy was still having ‘moments’ after being unmade, after realizing he was a dream.

Ronan glances back to him thoughtfully, “better.” It was more of a grunt than word, but Ronan slowed down to talk to him as they walked.

The summer was already oppressive that early in the morning and Adam felt beads of sweat forming on his back. All he can think about is Ronan’s hand again.

He liked it, soft on the inside where the knuckles were worn hard from boxing on the outside.

Ronan makes dry comments about Mathew and few remarks on Declan’s new girlfriend, who he claimed ‘this one was actually going to have Declan over her fucking knee.'

Adam nods and continues to glance at his hands. Nail beds were a mess and wrist wrapped on gnawed on leather wristbands.

Someone honks at them as they walk past and Adam brushes the outside of his ring finger over Ronan’s.

It’s not like they hadn’t held hands before but Adam always wanted it so frantically and on edge, still circling each other to know where to comfort and where to touch.

Why did others make it look so easy?

He reaches out and grabs Ronan’s hand mid-sentence. Ronan pauses and they practically stops walking, he glances down at it quickly, almost too quick to notice, fingers threaded together ever so lightly. Ronan fiercely grabs down, like it was a challenge, and Adam sighs in some unknowable relief.

Ronan’s mouth is a sudden upturned sun of its own and Adam wants to hold that like a still bleeding heart in his hands and sell it to the Gods.

He settles for holding hands while walking to church.

Declan gives them a quick once over when they arrive, and Mathew flashes them thumbs up. Ronan kisses him on the cheek before he leaves and Adam’s face tingles for the rest of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> honestly, I just wanted Ronan and Adam to cuddle more in the books, boys needed some comfort like damn


End file.
